China's Zhongce Rubber Plans $500 Million Tire Plant in Sokhna, Egypt

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 2, China's Zhongce Rubber Group signed a letter of intent with the Suez Canal Economic Zone Authority to study the construction of a tire manufacturing complex in the Sokhna Industrial Zone within the Suez Canal Economic Zone. The project is expected to involve an investment of approximately $500 million, with an initial planned area of about 600,000 square meters. It is currently still in the project research and preliminary assessment stage, and has not yet entered the formal investment implementation or construction phase.

According to information released by Egypt's Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade, the proposed project is planned to be implemented in three phases, with construction content including production lines for passenger car and truck tires, as well as industrial, service, and logistics facilities directly supporting tire production. Zhongce Rubber plans to direct approximately 95% of its target output to exports, primarily targeting African, Middle Eastern, and European markets.

The document signed this time is a letter of intent, with the core content being further research on the project's technical conditions, investment requirements, and site selection options. The Egyptian side stated that both parties will need to continue completing project studies, determining the specific land plot, and advancing relevant approval and investment procedures before moving to the next development stage. Existing public information has not yet provided the project's total designed production capacity, capacity allocation across phases, construction timeline, or planned commissioning date.

Zhongce Rubber plans to advance the project under its Chairman and General Manager Shen Jinrong. Egyptian officials confirmed that the project is intended to produce automobile and truck tires, citing the port, transportation, and logistics conditions of the Sokhna Industrial Zone as important factors in selecting the site for an export-oriented production base.

Sokhna is already home to several Chinese tire industry companies advancing investments. Since 2025, projects involving companies including Sailun, Chaoyang Langma, and related tire industry chain enterprises have successively entered the area, with the Sailun project alone involving an investment scale of approximately $1 billion. With Zhongce Rubber now entering the preliminary research stage, it has become one of the Chinese companies recently continuing to evaluate tire manufacturing operations in Sokhna.